No Sweat: Tigers didn't panic with game on the line

Tuesday

Jan 10, 2017 at 5:40 PMJan 11, 2017 at 7:36 AM

Todd Shanesy Staff Writer @ToddShanesySHJ

TAMPA, Fla. — Deshaun Watson had a smile on his face well before anybody else wearing orange did.

Watson threw a touchdown pass to Hunter Renfrow with one second remaining Monday night as Clemson beat Alabama, 35-31, in the national championship game at Raymond James Stadium. But Watson was already feeling good, he said Tuesday morning, even after Alabama scored a TD to take the lead with barely two minutes left. That seemed like a crushing blow for the Tigers, who had just gone in front, only to have it snatched away.

Their quarterback insisted he wasn’t worried.

“It was 2:01 on the clock (after Alabama’s kickoff) and I just kind of smiled,” Watson said. “I told myself, ‘They left too much time.’”

Watson found Renfrow for a 6-yard gain on third-and-3 from the Alabama 32 and then Jordan Leggett for 17 yards down to the 9. There were only 14 seconds left when the Tigers called timeout. It had to be a pressure-filled and intense huddle, right?

“That was a fun timeout,” Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney said. “It was fun. That was a fun huddle.”

So then it was down to only six seconds remaining after pass interference in the end zone. Still enough time, Swinney said, to go for the win and not settle for a field goal try that, if successful, would’ve sent the game into overtime.

The Tigers were two yards from a national championship.

And they went for it.

Watson rolled to his right and Renfrow went that direction, too, losing his defender on a bump with wide receiver Artavis Scott and a second defender. Renfrow was wide-open and caught the touchdown pass with just one tick on the clock.

“I felt like it was going to be a four-second play,” Swinney said. “It’s going to be in and out. I felt like we could get a timeout with one second. Less than (five seconds before the snap), we kick the field goal, we go into overtime and see what happens.

“…It was going to get (Watson) on the move, so I knew we wouldn’t get a sack. So I felt very confident with six seconds that we could manage the situation. If we didn’t hit it there, then we would have kicked a field goal. … But we were not playing to kick to kick a field goal. We were playing to win the game and we were able to put it in No. 4’s hands and he got it done.”

So did Renfrow, who scored two touchdowns in the championship game for the second year in a row. Swinney said it was fitting that the star quarterback, Heisman trophy runner-up and possible first overall pick of the NFL draft, connected with a former walk-on that had no FBS scholarship offers, on the play that won a national championship.

“If we lined all of our managers up, he’d be about the 10th guy you’d pick to be Hunter Renfrow,” Swinney said. “…To me, that moment epitomizes what our program is all about. You’ve got the five-star quarterback throwing the game-winning touchdown to the walk-on wideout. And that’s the epitome of our team. It doesn’t matter if you’re the five-star guy or the walk-on.”

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